Connect Online

What is the different between being a “conscious elder” and simply being old?

Are you a Conscious Elder?

A person who is a conscious elder has matured spiritually. She/he combines that deepened spirituality with emotional and intellectual awareness and curiosity. The wise person integrates heart, mind, and body.

Not every old person explores and expands as they age. Some shrink into the comfort zone of the past, the familiar.

How has your available time changed?

I love it that I’m not trying to sell anything to keep myself balanced in the financial flow. It’s not that I have a lot, but I am tucked in so I have the deep joy and pleasure of exploring what I want and writing about what I want. It is very freeing.

As an elder, you’ll have more time. What constructive action will you take?

Why our elder viewpoint is needed

We have time. We have experience. When we mix in curiosity and a desire to make a difference, we have active contribution and gate-opening guidance to share. We become teachers and guardians. To do that, we have to have an ongoing commitment to our own development and growth.

Elders as teachers

In the world today, it’s very easy to pass your wisdom forward. Blogs, videos, podcasts, online courses are all easy forms to use to share your knowledge and insights. Use your own sense of curiosity to go exploring and then pass along what you learn.

Elders as guardians

Being a conscious elder is not about holding on to the past and being unwilling to change. It’s about developing new insights based on your unique overview of having lived a lot of years plus the advanced self-awareness that allows you to discern the core values that need to be preserved.

Not everyone can move beyond their own world of self and see the overview, the broader picture, the future as a reflection of the present and the past.

Elders can guide

As our consciousness matures, we learn to make room for and honor different viewpoints. If we are truly wise, we have conversations with those with differing views and find the shared core values and begin there.

This willingness to find common ground helps us steady the ship of our world.

Elders have patience

Because we are experience, we have learned patience and the value and gifts of the unfolding process. We have patience. We see the overview. And we have the ability to move beyond ourselves to hold a higher consciousness for the world.

Question your beliefs

In order to elevate our own consciousness, we have to know where our own beliefs came from. We need to question each of them and clean out our belief closet to make certain the ones we keep still hold true.

We need to identify our core values. They will have changed somewhat as we age. We must research the facts behind our beliefs in a willingness to change those beliefs based on new information that keeps emerging.

We must move beyond our perceived separateness

As conscious elders, we must hold the entire world in light. We know we are light. We know we are one. We know we come from the Originating Mystery and will return there. There is no separateness. We’re all one energy. And everything we say, do, and think affects that whole.

Become a Conscious Elder

You may become a peacemaker as the younger generations explore and establish their own values and beliefs. You may become an advisor in your community, bringing your wisdom and experience into the creation of a new way of being and doing.

Whatever happens, there’s an opportunity in every situation. We have to look for it. Look for the opportunity itself, not whether it needed or did not need to happen.

How will you put your elder consciousness to work in order to pass this world forward to future generations?

That’s our job you know. To guard our world and keep shining our light upon it.

The postcard from my grandson was a surprise. He acknowledged qualities in me that he respected. And I realized our family does not do that. We do not offer words of appreciation for the ways they express themselves that touches so many hearts, those less tangible qualities of soul and values.

And that’s going to change. Beginning with me.

Do you state the obvious?

Of course, I know my daughter is kind and thoughtful but do I ever tell her that? No. I guess I figure she knows that about herself. Do I tell my son he’s a thoughtful, attentive father? Well, yes I do, on Father’s Day, but…you get the picture.

What do you need to tell someone that you see and admire in them?

Make an acknowledgment list

I keep an acknowledgment list for myself. But I never thought to keep an acknowledgment list for those I care about. What would be on it? I’d tell the social services director here how much I appreciate our occasional philosophical talks. I’d tell my shamanic course partner how much I respect her choice to honor her spiritual calling even when she has an established major presence in medicine. I’d thank my healer friend in California for her ongoing support but I’d also acknowledge her for her perception and healing ability.

See how this unfolds? Look at what people bring into your life, then look beyond that to the gifts they share, and acknowledge those.

Overlook the differences

My grandson said, “I know our intellects are interested in projects of different natures, I nonetheless have tremendous respect for your ongoing passion and enthusiasm.” Acknowledge the differences if you need to, but then acknowledge the gifts, the thoughtfulness that person has extended to you.

Practice

I have to change my thinking in order to do this. I have online conversations with healer friends regularly, and I have to learn to end those conversations with not just a “thank you” but with an acknowledgment of the gifts they have and have offered and have shared.

I may acknowledge a choice they made or an insight they had. I may thank them for a heartfelt share or… I have to look and listen closely to see what I can reflect back to them. I want to hold up a mirror of appreciation so they know how valuable they are.

It’s a matter of changing your thinking and deepening your observation and choosing to say the words.

The next steps were easy, but each one called for a decision to be made. I realized that it was the need to make more choices that was holding back my progress.

I was putting a book up on iBooks. They wanted key words. A decision. They wanted a sample chapter. A decision. They wanted…you get the picture. The steps were easy but each one needed a decision on my part.

I looked around to see where else in my life decision-making was slowing me down – or stopping me altogether.

Choose one important thing and do it

My life changed when I read a suggestion that we simply pick one important thing to accomplish each day and do it. What a difference that made! One thing. One important thing. Just one.

So if I choose to get the book cover in iBooks Author as my one important thing that meant I could look at an instruction video, again, and make my decision. Then I could read the section on uploading in iProducer. And make uploading the book the most important thing I did the next day. Each day moves me further along. And each day I have only one important thing to accomplish.

I can do that. And so can you!

Group the type of tasks

It helps to group types of tasks together. I record four videos at a time because the light is set up, my hair is combed, etc.

I write posts every day, but once a month I go through them and pull out the ones that seem to have value. Then I work on them every other day for at least three days, so I can return to them with a beginner’s mind. Then I run them through www.grammarly.com and send them to my editor. When they come back I spend a focused period of time choosing photos for all of them and bingo – I have a month’s worth of posts ready.

All because I batched my actions.

Clear space to do the work

If we’re going to focus on one thing, we have to make a decision on what we’ll momentarily put aside in order to make that happen.

If my one important thing to do this week is to edit a batch of posts, then I probably won’t record my vLog.

If my weekly newsletter is due each Sunday, I have to work on it several times during the week. I find myself inspired to write pieces of it, but on Thursday I set aside time to edit and polish it and send it to be proofed.

Choose. Pick one step, one project and begin. You can always stop. You can always expand. Just make a choice and begin.

Exploration and expanding choice

The more you go exploring, the broader your choices become.

When I made my first book covers, it was based on what I knew how to do at the time. But I kept experimenting and exploring different programs and allowing what I learned to become absorbed.

And I got better.

And better.

The more you learn, the broader your choices become.

Use visioning to explore

If I were faced with a decision that required me to place myself in a new position – or not – I’d use my imagination to explore my options. I’d examine my emotions and feeling and state of happiness in the new opportunity compared with my present circumstances, and let those feeling guide my choices.

For instance, as I study shamanism I’ve become clear that I do not want to develop a big practice for individual clients. But I do want to help change the world. I’ve found a form of shamanistic participation that fits my intentions and my circumstances. Now I get to explore exactly how I’m going to live that and share that. I simply let it unfold.

Sometimes one choice is as good as another

It doesn’t really matter what form my shamanic practice takes as long as I continue to explore and expand my own understanding and find expressive ways to share what I learn with the world.

Another example is that it doesn’t matter if I stir fry my vegetables or steam them. As long as I make the healthy choice of eating vegetables.

Some decisions are important. Others not so much.

Tomorrow is good too

If something blocks our way, move it aside for the moment. For instance, I was editing a batch of posts. I make my selections from all I’ve written lately, put them in one document and start working.

I came to one that needed a lot of work. I moved it to the bottom of the document I’m working in because I’ll feel better moving through the posts that are coming together well. I can put the decision of what to do about that post that needs work until all the rest are ready. I can make it the first thing I do tomorrow. It’ll be one decision and I’ll feel good about what I’ve already accomplished – the posts that are ready to go for proofing.

Allow yourself flexibility in your schedule and your choices in order to do your best work.

Make one decision at a time

Make a choice and go exploring. If that choice doesn’t feel right, go back to base camp and begin again in a different direction. If, on the other hand, you come to an enticing side trip, feel free to take that too.

Life is a wonderful adventure full both of choices and of surprises. Enjoy the journey.

Does the size of the crowd you draw to your work indicate the depth of its value? No. A big resounding “no.” Our true value is not measured in book sales or crowd sizes, promotions received or money made. The sole value of our work is in the depth of the impact it makes, the lives it changes. When your idea “turns the page” for someone, or gives them courage, or opens up new insights and encourages them to make new choices – and they take action – that’s when you change lives.

One life changed is a major impact

You’ve touched and changed more lives than you know. A smile when a person was sad, words of recognition of the spark someone shows, simply being in someone’s life as support. There are so many ways we have impact that seem to be unimportant because we don’t see how far-reaching our impact is.

The difference between process and purpose

I recently did a shamanic journey to discover my Soul’s Purpose. My partner in the shamanic course we’re both taking did that same journey for me too. We both got versions of the same theme but I realized that mine was more about my process while hers was about my overarching purpose.

We need to be aware of both. We need to understand our overarching purpose and then make certain the process we choose is supporting that.

My process is to explore the unseen world, write about what I discover and share it where others can find it. My purpose is to help someone brighten the light they bring to the world.

We all want to change hearts

Whatever the form our giving takes, we do it because we’re called to express ourselves in a particular manner and we want it to contribute in some way to the lives of others.

The person who builds homes helps build a family. The person who stocks shelves helps feed a family, as does the farmer and trucker and… We all have far-reaching impact. We just have to realize it.

Begin with the way you do your work

If you continually do your best work, are your best self and keep encouraging yourself to evolve, you’ll deepen your service. I have to write what I write and I have to share it, whether anyone reads it or not.

I hope they do. Actually, I know they do. I hope they find themselves changed, but my need to do this work is absolute.

I hear the stories of musicians who sing in any venue to any size crowd for years just so they can be heard. Then they go on to win The Voice.

There’s the African war orphan who saw a picture of a ballerina and knew that was what she needed and wanted to be, even though she didn’t know what it was. She was the last to be adopted in her orphanage but the woman who adopted her helped her realize her dream.

Michaela DePrince went from war orphan to major ballerina. The women who helped her had no idea how far-reaching her impact was when she helped this young girl realize her potential.

We don’t always get to impact a life in such a profound manner. But then, we never know, do we?

There are so many stories of people being changed by a mentor. Sometimes it’s that they were inspired by a person’s work, sometimes it’s something someone said or did in ordinary life. Inspiration and the power to change are everywhere in every moment.